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Brasil

Since January 2013, turbine makers have needed to comply with three of the following four criteria to receive Finame accreditation, which enables their customers to receive loan rates of 6-8% from the BNDES national development bank (far below the 11% base rate). All four will have to be met by January 2016.

São Paulo, Brazil’s most industrialised state, should announce in the coming weeks an extension of tax incentives for all renewable technologies – including PV – in preparation for the first state renewable power auction in the second half of 2014, a senior official told Recharge.

Brazil's National Development Bank (BNDES) is likely to increase lending to the wind power sector by 20% in 2014 to R$4.32bn ($1.8bn) from the R$3.6bn it lent in 2013, the bank's alternative energy department said.

Greencoat UK Wind – whose flotation on the London Stock Exchange in March sparked a series of copycats – is putting the finishing touch on new debt arrangements that will allow it to begin acquiring more UK wind farms.

German utility E.ON has started construction of its operations and maintenance building on the North Sea island of Helgoland, which it will use as operations base for its 288MW Amrumbank West offshore wind farm.

The Czech Republic’s lower house of Parliament has voted to end support for new renewables projects and to extend a tax on existing PV installations from the start of next year, in the latest effort to curb subsidies and reduce rising power prices.

Dong Energy has won a £1.1m ($1.7m) grant to support the £11.5m offshore wind base it is building in Grimsby, northeast England, adding another modest jolt to the Humberside region’s ambitions for the industry.